MMU Cheshire student, studying Outdoor Studies and living life to the full with a disability.

Monday, 16 July 2012

Time and the shit that sticks to it.

Time and the shit that sticks to it.

When I was little, first day of primary school the teacher;
Mrs Angus made us all stand in a line and said “Right, if you want to be a
teacher when you grow up, stand over to this side. If you want to be an artist
when you grow up, stand over there.”
I didn’t know.
So I stood in the middle.
Grow up?
Is that what I’d come here to do?
I didn’t know. I didn’t get it.
I still don’t.
I’m still stood in the middle.

It’s like, from the very day we’re born, we get told we’re
doing this weird “growing up,” “growing old,” “dying” thing, making ourselves
obsessed with our own and everyone else’s age, maturity or lack of it. We spend
our childhoods wanting to be older, our teenage years trying to be, our adult
years...well, that can vary. And we constantly pick ourselves apart from other
humans because they’re “too old” or “look about 12!” or don’t fit into the 4
year threshold that makes befriending someone acceptable.
Why?
Why should a stupid number that gets pinned to our chest and changes every year,
define who we are?
It’s not permanent! It’s not a tattoo; it doesn’t need removing with a laser!
Ok, it’s something we can’t change and we can’t run away from, but it’s not who
we are.

It’s not that thought, it’s not that idea, it’s not that
dream or burning desire within your heart and mind that you will carry with you
for your own eternity, or the one you decide not too.
But that’s the thing.
It’s not you.
It’s just a tiny part of the universe attaching itself to you, giving you the
means to cling on to this wonky bit of time you find yourself falling into.
It just proves how little you and everyone else who’s alive right now really is.
These little moments we hold onto and represent mean nothing, and yet because
of this they mean all the more.
It not how much time you appear to beg, steal or borrow. That doesn’t matter.
It’s how you choose to spend, indulge into and share something that you just
can’t control.
So don’t care how old you, or anyone else is. It doesn’t mean anything.
What matters are the messed up, mixed up desires that turn into ideas that turn
into words and actions that make you, your life and anyone who appears in it, true.
Age?
It’s nothing to do with “growing up”, what even is “that” anyway?
Na, It’s just an indication of what you’ve got and the time you have.
But it’s not the shit that sticks to it.
That’s up to you.